2 + 2 = 5

 “I have come very late to the pleasure of sitting still with little or nothing on my mind.” Jim Harrison, The Road Home

Coming to the end of my first month of retirement. My Freedom Summer, the first time in twenty-two years that I haven’t been yoked to someone else’s schedule. It has been brilliant. A run of days of cool mornings and lovely sunny afternoons. I’ve been writing, reading, walking or riding my bike up Garcia Road, doing my training sessions, drinking wine, and watching TV in the evening with my wife. We’re into Dr. Death and The White Lotus at the moment. We enjoyed the Kominsky Method. The money is holding. Everybody’s healthy and we don’t suffer at all; life is crazy good right now. 

But back east in the nation’s capitol, the seat of our government and home of our limited, tenuous democracy, and many of our most cherished national myths, the war between Fact and Fantasy rages on. Trump fans the flame, Fox News amplifies it, and GOP nitwits like Kevin McCarthy and Ted Cruz repeat the talking points. Whatever the issue, employ the same tactic: work a bit of verbal jujitsu and flip it. Thus can Elise Stefanik, the third ranking member in the House GOP hierarchy, blame the breach of the capitol on Nancy Pelosi. Stefanik is banking on the American people being too ignorant to know what Stefanik clearly knows, namely, that the Speaker of the House isn’t responsible for security at the capitol. Not that facts matter. Slinging mud is what matters to the GOP. Anything and everything can be blamed on Pelosi. 

The modern GOP is like the Communist Party in the old Soviet Union, decrepit and morally debased, interested only in clinging to power; it’s a party based on denial -- of everything from climate change to who was responsible for the insurrection on January 6. We learned this week that neither Kevin McCarthy or Mitch McConnell watched the first hearing of the House subcommittee investigating the Trump-inspired insurrection. Couldn’t be bothered, nothing to learn from four officers who battled rioters on that mournful day. Over on the Fox propaganda network, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson accused the officers of “theatrics.” So much for backing the men and women of Law Enforcement. 

Keeping an eye on politics tests one’s faith in human nature. Where else in this country do people so regularly sell out as in the halls of Congress? I’m not talking about the compromises politicians must make in order to craft legislation -- horse trading and compromise is how the sausage gets made. It’s messy and few are happy at the end. It’s the art of the possible and all that. I’m talking about selling out one’s principles. Condemning Donald Trump for inciting a mob one minute, then skipping down to Mar-A-Lago to lick his balls the next, as Kevin McCarthy did earlier this year, is what I’m talking about. Shamelessly describing the mob as a bunch of peaceful tourists, trying to turn rioters into patriots and martyrs, gaslighting people every day into doubting what they saw with their own eyes is my point. 

Insisting that 2 + 2 = 5. 

The last thing the GOP wants is for the full scope of what went down on January 6 to come out. They know where the trail of evidence will lead. They must know which members will be implicated. That’s why McConnell nixed a non-partisan independent investigation and McCarthy did his best to ratfuck the House subcommittee by clogging it with wingnuts and bomb-throwers like Jim Jordan. McCarthy wanted to turn the hearings into a circus, but since being outmaneuvered by Nancy Pelosi, all he can do is carp from the sidelines. Kevin’s not the brightest bulb, but he is scared of Jim Jordan and his ilk, and doesn’t want what happened to John Boehner to happen to him. McCarthy plays all the angles.

I don’t know how these folks sleep at night after spending an entire day pissing on the oath they swore. Corruption is corrosive and power corrupts and absolute power (which is what Trump wants. He wants to be Vladimir Putin) corrupts absolutely. If I were Steve Scalisi, I’d be watching over my shoulder for Elise Stefanik. She likes power, she’s hungry for it. She’s had a taste of it and wants more. 

You can’t swim in a cesspool and come out smelling of lilac. 

Songs of the Doomed

 “It was a loving crowd to by the way. There was a lot of love. I’ve heard that from everybody.” Former President Donald J. Trump on January 6. 

So, January 6, 2021 was a love fest. The Capitol police were ushering Trump’s people into the building, handing out cut flowers, bottles of water, canapes, wetnaps. It was like an outdoor picnic in the middle of winter, an outpouring of patriotic spirit, a red, white and blue day of celebration. And then Mike Pence fucked it all up.

Jesus Christ. I listened to some of Trump’s absolutely bat shit interview with Carol Leonning and Philip Rucker, Washington Post reporters and co-authors of I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year. I have no idea how Leonning and Rucker managed to keep looks of utter disbelief from taking over their faces. Trump’s rambling, fact-free, bullshit, completely-untethered-from-reality monologues are hard to listen to. Trump is every bloated, self-satisfied, stupid relative who gets tanked on Thanksgiving and subjects his entire family to outlandish tales of his own greatness. It’s just embarrassing that this malignant jackass was once the president of this beleaguered nation. Breathtaking mental illness. Never very bright to begin with, Trump has now slipped over the edge into total dementia. Trump actually makes Richard Nixon’s drunken midnight rants sound sane and rational. 

“Well, I heard,” Trump says. From who, Donald? The cheering throng inside your head? I imagine Hunter S. Thompson interviewing Trump, and in the first thirty seconds fixing the former president with a whiskey stare and saying, “Hey, what the fuck’s wrong with you? Are you really this fucked up, and without drugs? Sweet Jesus.” Leonning and Rucker spent more than two brain-withering hours with Trump. That’s a form of mental torture, like blasting the rankest heavy metal music into a bare prison cell for hours at a time in order to soften a prisoner up for interrogation. Did Leonning and Rucker head straight for the bar at Mar-A-Lago when they finished? Did they retreat to their rental car and fire up a fatty? To hear Trump talk about the Constitution, a document he’s never read and wouldn’t understand if he bothered to read it, and reference Thomas Jefferson, was perverse and disturbing. Dealing with nutters is never easy. But imagine the difficulty factor when the nutter is the ex-president of the most powerful military force on Earth. 

Don’t look into his eyes, never look into his eyes, it will melt your brain. 

I began this blog many years ago with the unshakeable belief that George W. Bush was the dumbest president in American history. Compared to Trump, Bush is like a member of Mensa or a Rhodes scholar. It’s hideous. Trump is Captain Ahab and Captain Queeg and Captain Bligh rolled into one fat ball. Monstrous, utterly monstrous. And millions of people believe this human piece of flotsam is the Second Coming. What the fuck is wrong with this country? Do we have dementia? Too much processed food, reality TV, opioids, booze, beer, weed, porn, and online shopping? Can an entire nation suffer cognitive decline? Maybe. You know how when we talk about great athletes who play team sports, like Michael Jordan, Tom Brady (fucking Trumper), Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Lionel Messi, etc., we say one measure of their greatness is their ability to make their teammates better? We always say that because it’s true. Great players lift the level of play of those around them. Now, think about Trump and the motley collection of dickheads, sycophants, thieves, and miscreants who surround him. Unlike a Messi, Trump makes the people around him dumber, weaker, even more idiotic. I mean, if Trump told Kevin McCarthy to fall to his knees and howl like a dog, I have no doubt that McCarthy would do it. 

Listening to Trump ramble for less than five minutes made my heart pound and my blood pressure rise. I felt a strange tingling around my left temple. I had to pull a book by Hunter S. Thompson from my shelf and seek a quote to make me feel better, it being too early in the day for a shot of single-malt or a toke or an edible. I found this in Songs of the Doomed: “We are raising a whole generation in this country that will never know what it feels like to rise up together and flog a crooked president out of the White House.” No, doc, it’s so bad now a generation of meatheads rises up to put a deranged and crooked president BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE. 

We’re all singing songs of the doomed now, folks...

Tushy

 

“After the rise of Barack Obama, large numbers of white Americans became convinced not only that racism was a thing of the past but also that, to the extent racial prejudice remained a factor in American life, white people were its primary victims.” Adam Serwer, The Cruelty Is The Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America

Today I experienced a significant DIY accomplishment. All by myself I installed a bidet called a Tushy. For a competent man installing a Tushy would be a tension-free breeze, but when it comes to plumbing, tools, measurements and the like, I’m anything but competent. I usually have an ordeal, a confrontation with all my limitations, and a tango with the tarnished angels of my nature. F-bombs fall. My temper flares. I actually attempted to install the Tushy the day before, but could not get the hose connections to stop leaking. I followed the provided directions, full of pithy sayings about taking a poo, to the letter, and I looked forward with anticipation to the Tushy bathing my butt in cool water. Ha. Not so fast. After sopping up water with towels I put the Tushy back in its box, dead set on returning it from whence it came. But my failure nagged at me and I resolved to take another shot at the installation. This damn thing will not defeat me was what I was thinking. After taking a relaxing spin on my bike along Cabrillo Boulevard, I was back in the bathroom, resolute and determined. Lo and behold, a miracle, a domestic triumph, I successfully installed the Tushy -- without uttering a single curse -- and now our butts will be washed clean. 

This morning my wife informed me that our bank balance is a slender $114 until she gets paid again. Jesus, only my second week of retirement and already broke. I’m still coming to terms with the idea of “retirement”, preferring to think of this period as one of transition from one form of life to another, with more time, less work, more life, and less money. I realize the inherent limitations in this formula. I’ve applied for part-time jobs at Costco, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods; we’ll see if anyone wants to hire me. In the immediate, we’re fine, comfortably housed, well-fed, healthy. And now we will also boast clean asses! Life is good. 

I’m sitting on our secluded patio, under a red market umbrella. It’s a warm afternoon under a cloudless sky. The ice is melting in my G&T. I’m being pestered by an aggressive fly. My wife is inside, taking a nap. She’s developed a new affliction: she smells tobacco smoke when it’s not there. I forget the clinical name, but apparently this isn’t uncommon, and in fact is a side effect of a blood pressure medication which my wife has been on for years. What she believes she’s smelling manifests in irritated eyes and mild headaches. 

What were most Americans thinking about in 1851? What was the burning political issue of the time? What kept escalating, becoming more tense? Slavery. The Missouri Compromise and the Fugitive Slave Act. Did a man who owned another man have a right to pursue and apprehend his property in a free state? If a Negro escaped his owner and made it to a free state, was he assumed to be emancipated? What about compensation for his owner, the insurance companies and the banks? The business of slavery had its own infrastructure, one piece dependent on another. Big, fraught questions that lingered, then flared into controversies every few years. In the free states the slavery issue was vexxing, an annoyance. Many citizens objected to slavery, but that didn’t mean that Negroes were welcome; they weren’t. No open arms waited. They were the problem as much as the people who owned them -- and were determined to continue owning them. I’m sure there were many white people in free states who wished the Negro problem would just go away. It’s like our own time when half the country wishes that Donald Trump would just go away. But it won’t happen. Trumpism will be with us for a time. This is a divided nation. In thirteen Southern states 66% of Republicans support secession according to polling by Bright Line Watch. 

I hate to be a downer (I know, I know, this blog is usually a downer) but I think we’re headed for a period of armed confrontations between Trump’s insurrectionists and federal, state and local authorities. Political violence runs through American history. But if ever there was a terrible time for the country to be so bitterly divided, this is it, facing as we are two related crises: the pandemic and global climate change. The American west is bone dry and afire; parts of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands are under water. Climate change is happening now, not down the road. It’s fucking scary. 

BACKLASH

“Not just in the South but across the country the Klan enjoyed a remarkable resurgence, reaching its all-time peak of an estimated four million members by 1924.” Adam Hochschild, “All-American Vigilantes” The New York Review

It used to be that nations mounted space explorations, now a few Robber Baron billionaires have so much wealth at their disposal that they can foot the bill to shoot themselves into space. Bully for you, Richard Branson. Who will the next contestant in the Billionaire Space Race be? 

I’m reading “The Cruelty Is The Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America” by Adam Serwer. One thing I’ve come to realize is that many of my fellow Americans are happy to enter the tent of Nationalism-Nativism-Racism. The rhetoric of America First, of America-for-Americans, and the superiority of the white race appeals to millions, as evidenced by the 74 million votes cast for Donald Trump in November 2020. That Trump was incompetent, immoral, ignorant, and an imbecile didn’t matter. As Adam Serwer points out in his essays, Trump’s followers adore him because he says out loud, and often, what they think; he hates and demonizes the same people they do, and gives voice to their grievances. A core tenet of Trumpism is that undeserving people are taking from “real” Americans, reaping benefits at the expense of flag-waving, gun-toting, salt-of-the-earth Americans. The takers are black and brown, foreign and devious, the victims are white. Democrats side with the black and brown folks, the queer, women, animals, fish and fowl at the expense of true Americans. Trump’s gift is that he absolves his followers of any shame or guilt. He makes them feel good, justified in their beliefs and opinions. He assures them that they are good people, “tremendous” people, as he called the mob who sacked the US Capitol on January 6. Trump tapped into an old, recurring, and reliable strain of American bigotry. 

I didn’t fully appreciate the backlash against Barack Obama until Trump was in office and actively trying to efface everything Obama had accomplished. Obama’s ethnicity never bothered me. What bothered me were his centrist policies, his caution, his expansion of our unwinnable wars, and his harsh treatment of illegal immigrants. In hindsight, I better understand what Obama was up against: it wasn’t just Mitch McConnell and the entire GOP that tried to thwart him, it was a sizable chunk of the white electorate who despised him because he was a black man who embodied the great fear of white people. The response to Barack Obama was tribal, and had far less to do with jobs and wages and material well-being, and more to do with bigotry -- and the fear of losing control, status, and privilege that white skin has always bestowed. As Adam Serwer writes, tribe and race over country is the core of white nationalism. 

What happens next? I have no idea, but the portends are dark. The energy of resurgent white nationalism has to go somewhere. We’ve witnessed what Trump’s followers are capable of and it would be a mistake to believe they will fade quietly away. At this point it’s obvious that Trump’s core supporters will not desert him no matter what. Donald J. Trump satisfies the darkest impulses in the American soul. 

Who Will Win, England or Italy?

 “Every time the national team plays, no matter against whom, the country holds its breath.” Eduardo Galeano, Soccer in Sun and Shadow

The start of my semi-retirement has been very relaxed, free of worry. I’ve willed myself to do as little as possible, to honestly take a break, wind down. The other morning I took a long bike ride along the beach, followed by a five mile walk on the Riviera, where some of the loveliest homes in this city are. At night Santa Barbara shimmers and glitters down below. I came back to the flat land by way of winding Garcia Road. I feel ridiculously happy. I wake up slowly rather than like a man fired from a cannon. I’ve done some satisfying training sessions in my home gym, which is set up perfectly for all the modes of training I regularly do. And I’ve been reading a wonderful novel by Colm Toibin called The Master. It’s a stunning literary work. I’ve started a few poems. In the evening as the sun drops in the sky and the heat abates, we sit on our front porch, sipping pinot grigio. Life is very good. We love our new lodgings. 

For all that, my obsession this past week was Euro 2020, the semi-final matches between Italy and Spain, England and Denmark. I’m happy to see Italy in the Final. After France and Belgium, Italy was my team. I like the style of football they play under Roberto Mancini. I thought Spain played some very strong football against Italy in the semi-final, the first team in the tournament to dictate the tempo to the Azzurri. It was a classic match, concluding in a heart-stopping penalty shoot-out. Denmark put up stiff and valiant resistance against England deep into the additional periods, but it became clear that England had more strength and stamina. Kyle Walker was still sprinting with ease past the 110th minute; Denmark looked knackered. The penalty on Raheem Sterling was questionable, but give Harry Kane credit for his quick and sure reaction when Denmark’s Kaspar Schmeichel blocked his penalty kick. After decades of futility and heartbreak, England finally earned a berth on the biggest European stage of all. 

The Italian midfield is a joy to watch. Nicolo Barella, Jorginho, and Marco Verratti are each strong players on their own, all adept on playing in tight spaces and under extreme pressure. As a trio they are effective at winning the ball back quickly, and often high up the pitch. What the Italian midfield lacks is the raw physicality of England’s Declan Rice, and that lack is one reason I’m not convinced Italy can control the middle of the pitch for long periods of time. Jorginho is the key player for Italy in that respect, because, as he does for Chelsea in the Premier League, it’s Jorginho who keeps the ball moving, who offers an outlet to the back line, and who links the play. If England neutralize Jorginho, the Three Lions can control the midfield and get the ball to Harry Kane when he drops deeper to orchestrate England’s attack. Kane is in form again, not only scoring goals, but making incisive passes and intelligent runs.  

Another element the Azzurri lack is an out-and-out striker. Ciro Immobile and Andrea Belotti are workhorses up front, willing to make runs and press the ball, but goals have been coming from the wings by way of Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Chiesa. Italy needs their strikers to put some pressure on John Stones and Harry Maguire. The other reason I think England will prevail tomorrow night is the absence for Italy of Leonardo Spinazzola, who was having a fine tournament until he went down with an injury. Emerson Palmieri isn’t nearly as effective as Spinazzola, and, in fact, can be a liability. Finally, the match is being played in London at Wembley Stadium, an advantage for England. 

My prediction: England 2 - Italy 1. 

Star Spangled Fantasy

 “It is the burden of life to be many ages/without seeing the end of time.” Jim Harrison

Another 4th of July. Life, liberty and the pursuit of property and profit. We hold these truths to be self-evident (for white men). The many myths of America, shining city on the hill, beacon of freedom, cradle of liberty, welcoming arms for huddled masses from every corner of the globe. Rockets red glare. Dawn’s early light. Remember the Maine! Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My Lai. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The reality withers the myth like the burning sun shrivels the Pacific Northwest. Un-American you say, love it or leave it, Commie-Pinko-Socialist-Liberal. Get out if you don’t believe that America is the greatest country in the world, if you refuse to acknowledge the essential goodness of the people who inhabit this blessed nation. We’re No. 1!

America is a Land of Lies and Fantasy. Our history is littered with reverence for ignorance and fear. We avoid staring Truth in the face the same way Superman avoids kryptonite. We can’t accept or reconcile our long history of racism, violence, genocide, and destruction of our forests, rivers, lakes, and mountains because not enough of us have the courage to acknowledge the truth. We prefer to divide into our camps, red and blue, liberals and conservatives, the woke versus the Trumpian Zombies, and ride our fairy tales over the edge. After all these years and all the trauma, millions of white Americans can’t let go of the notion that there is something inherently inferior about black people. Am I alone in thinking that America is a madhouse, an air-conditioned nightmare as Henry Miller called it back in the 1940’s? 

The foundation is cracked and crumbling. Tears fall from the eyes of Lady Liberty, splash into the roiling waters of New York harbor. Huddled masses yearning to breathe free are no longer welcome here. The Republican Party is as conformist and sclerotic as the Communist Party was in the old Soviet Union, as adverse to facts and logic, reason and evidence. America is a fearful nation, not a confident one. Mainstream Democrats put up limp resistance, compromised as they are by corporate cash. The Supreme Court is ruled by political operatives in dark robes. As a country we’re not prepared for the coming crisis; there’s too much disunity and distrust within our borders, too much blatant celebration of our ignorance, fanned by Trump and his many enablers and imitators. Fire and flood and drought and famine are in our future, but we ignore the warning signs and dig ourselves in deeper. 

Raise Old Glory and aim your fireworks into the night sky. It’s Independence Day in the indispensable nation. We’re No. 1, remember? 

Study the Dust

 “Alas, it’s very hard to pass a prodemocratic measure in an antidemocratic system.” Jeet Heer, The Nation

The obstructionist GOP has done it again, this time blocking passage of significant election reforms pushed by Democrats. That these reforms are very popular with the voting public matters not at all. Nor does it matter that reforms are desperately needed to prevent a coup by a well-organized political minority. Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi vow to continue the fight, but the institutional barriers standing in their way are formidable. Where’s Biden? He didn’t throw much of his weight behind the legislation, despite telling Congress in April that American democracy is suffering an existential crisis. 

Mitch McConnell remains the most powerful and unaccountable politician in the nation. By sheer numbers, McConnell and his GOP represent fewer Americans than Democrats, but this doesn’t hinder their ability to block any legislation they dislike, which is almost everything the Democrats put forward. The GOP obstructs, period. Long gone are the days when politics was a method for mediating our differences and finding compromise. Now it’s just about amassing and wielding power. How is a two-party representative democracy supposed to work when one of the parties refuses to compromise? It can’t, which is why I think America is headed for authoritarian rule. 

Meanwhile, the western US is in the grips of a heatwave. I read more and more reports of falling water levels, at Lake Mead in Nevada which provides water to three states and parts of Mexico, and in California, where more than forty of the state’s fifty-eight counties are in severe drought; the Edward Hyatt Power Plant at Lake Oroville may be forced to shut down for the first time in a half a century. The lake is at 38 percent capacity. Farmers in southern Oregon skirmish with state and federal agencies over diminishing water supplies. We’re only at the summer solstice. The warnings climatologists have been issuing for decades are happening. Hotter and drier weather, bigger storms, massive wildfires, the consequence of human hubris and greed.  Like the California farmers and cattle ranchers and citrus growers I’ve been reading about in a brilliant book by Mark Arax called The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California, greed is baked into our society and the imperative is to get bigger, richer, more powerful. In California water and land have made or cost fortunes from the beginning. The ability of people to build massive dams, aqueducts, reservoirs, levees and canals, to divert rivers and use hydraulic power to mine for gold, irrigate some of the best farmland in the world, and allow the building of millions of homes is an awesome feat of vision, sweat, money, labor, and political influence. It’s why the State Water Project and the California Aqueduct were built: to capture water where it was abundant and transport it to where it was scarce. Tremendous public expense, huge private profits. Once that water started flowing, fortunes were made in cotton and cattle, grapes, mandarins, raisins, almonds, pistachios. Sole owners like Henry Miller and J.G. Boswell controlled hundreds of thousands of acres of land, some of it with water rights, some without. They and others ran company towns. As it always does, size matters, makes a difference in influence with bankers and politicians. Californians have always fought over water, north versus south, east versus west. Rivers were essentially stolen, bent to private use or controlled by the state or the Feds to the consternation of the locals. For decades, Central Valley farmers have dug deeper and deeper wells, in more and more places, and pumped the aquifer dry. In some places the land has sunk, the result of a falling water table. 

Our country should be having a serious conversation about climate change, but we are too self-absorbed and short-sighted to see the storm bearing down. If we cared to, we could learn a few things from the Covid pandemic, primarily that it makes sense to have adequately funded public agencies equipped and prepared to provide services when necessary. Our goal should be to reduce or alleviate human suffering, but our policies are created to protect property and the possessors of wealth. As in many places in the world, the poor pay the highest price, live the hardest lives, and die the earliest deaths. We could learn, as well, a few handy lessons from history, yet many influential people in positions of power would have us stop when the reality of who we are and what we have done grows darker, and crueler. 

We should ask ourselves if a political system as frail as ours can deliver the things millions of us will need to survive when the next disaster strikes. I’m not confident. The problem with our species is that we see ourselves as masters rather than caretakers. 

Killer Instinct (Lack Of)

 “The result is a metastisizing corruption at the heart of the polity. About the Capitol coup there is no shared reality.” Mark Danner, New York Review

I understand some of the political calculations being made by Democrats. If they move too zealously to punish Trump for his myriad abuses of power, they risk inflaming Trump’s diehard base, many of whom are armed and waiting for a provocation. But if Democrats don’t act to hold Trump and his enablers accountable, and soon, they run a real risk of legitimizing Trump’s abuses. 

If the tables were turned and a crazed horde of armed Black Lives Matter supporters had stormed the Capitol on January 6, the Republicans would have spent the last six months holding Benghazi-style hearings to the exclusion of any legislative activity. The rabid right-wing media universe would throb and buzz with dire predictions of an incipient attack on God-fearing white people. That’s just how the GOP rolls. By comparison the Democrats seem tame and phlegmatic, totally lacking in killer instinct; they are like a soccer club that always sits deep and defends, with only the faintest hope of hitting their opponent on the counter attack. The GOP plays to win, the Dems are content with a draw. 

While Democrats make their political calculations in wood-paneled corridors, the GOP is doing everything it can to cement minority rule. Writing in the New York Review, Mark Danner notes, “If in close elections Republicans can place the effective power to award a state’s electoral votes in the state legislature, they will have gone far toward establishing a permanent grip on the White House.” This certainly appears to be the operating strategy. Accepting Trump’s Big Lie about a stolen election is the first step, putting in place the mechanisms (blatant voter suppression and nullification measures) to prevent future elections from being “stolen” is what logically follows. 

As I wrote here after he won the election, Biden will do what he can to return the country to a state resembling normal (meaning, I suppose, a less over-the-top level of deceit and corruption than we experienced during Trump’s misbegotten reign), and steady the institutions Trump tipped over, but I can’t help but think he’s the proverbial boy with his finger in the dike. Opposing him is a political party in thrall to a con artist along with millions of people willing to practice magical thinking. Even if Trump is indicted by any one of the agencies on his trail, his supporters will not abandon him. I can’t see the moment when the fever breaks and the reality of who Trump really is becomes crystal clear. As Hunter S. Thompson might say, we are well and truly fucked. A country in which nearly half the population believes in idiotic conspiracy theories and “alternative” facts is doomed. 

What does the reality-based half of the country do, where do we turn, and how can we stop this unholy onslaught? That sound in the distance is the drumbeat of minority rule. January 6 was a skirmish in the war. Under American flag and Christian cross, the aggrieved have begun to march. 

Mob Boss

 “A hideous farce against a backdrop of sweat and misery.” Henry Miller

I enjoy walking in our yard in the evening, when the sun reflects from the windows and the air feels soft, the sky clear overhead. We have two small lemon trees, a jacaranda, and an old olive tree. Fuchsia bougainvillea, many varieties of cactus. Cars whiz past on Milpas, but with part of the yard shielded by a seven-foot hedge, the noise is muted. It’s a gift to have some turf to move around in. I give the compost bin a spin. My good fortune astonishes me. After 22 years working for the same employer, in the same building, I’m moving into a new phase of my life. It feels right, so I’m going with the feeling, see where it leads. For the first time in years, I feel comfortable in my skin, I’m not envious or jealous of others as I might have been in the past, and I’m treating myself with more kindness. 

When I go back in the house my wife is on the phone with her sister who lives in Santa Maria and is nearly blind and plagued with other serious health issues. Her little dog escaped from the yard again and was found strolling down the street. They talk about In The Heights, the movie that was released this week to Oprah-style hype. Underwhelming, says my wife. She’s more of a purest, Broadway is her passion, and she didn’t think the female leads had the voices for the roles. 

My news feed is full of reports about Trump’s corrupt Department of Justice, and how the DOJ, first under the reign of Jeff Sessions, and then The Dirty Doughboy, AKA William Barr, subpoenaed the digital records of at least two members of Congress, both Democrats, as well as reporters from the New York Times and CNN. Apple was also subpoenaed. We’re finding out about this now because the gag orders issued by federal judges have expired. The House members, Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, were harsh critics of Trump, in particular Schiff who prosecuted the first impeachment trial. It reads like a reboot of the old Nixon Enemies List. What’s interesting to me is the tone of surprise from the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN, as if they can’t believe these revelations. I’m not surprised at all. Trump is as corrupt as the United States is unequal. The true extent of the damage Trump caused won’t be clear for at least another decade, but the essential point is that you can’t hand the levers of political power to a person as corrupt as Trump without being certain that he will use that power corruptly, for his own ends and the ends of his friends and people useful to him. To understand Trump think only of The Godfather, the book by Mario Puzo, the films by Francis Ford Coppola. Trump desperately wants to be a Mob Boss in the style of Don Corleone, feared and respected, but he is doomed to play Fredo. Trump’s understanding of power isn’t sophisticated, it comes from the mob idea, that’s why he treated federal agencies as if they worked for him. Like a mob boss, Trump prizes loyalty to him above nearly all else, and punishing the disloyal is reflexive. I have long wondered what Trump and Putin talked about for an hour and a half in Helsinki a few years ago, but I’d wager that not only did Vlad have plenty of advice to offer Trump, but that Trump was receptive because he respects the power and fortune Putin has amassed. Look at Trump’s pardons of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and the noxious Roger Stone for further evidence of straight payback. Trump plays the game out in the open. How will the sycophants and boot-lickers in the GOP spin these latest developments? We will hear cries of “Witch Hunt” and “this is all politically motivated by the Democrats.” Those ruses are reliable ways to deflect and distract, clog up the news cycle and social media, and confuse people about what it all means. What it means is that we had better invest some effort into reforming the Department of Justice, Trump-proofing it while there is time. A house won’t stand for long on a cracked foundation. 

For The People

 “The purity and strength of Americanism are always threatened by contamination from outside and betrayal from within. The narrative of Real America is white Christian nationalism.” George Packer, The Atlantic, “The Four Americas.”

We won’t miss our democracy until it’s gone, and it appears to me that we’re well on the way to that eventuality. When it happens, and the reality of what’s been lost sets in, it will seem as if it happened suddenly rather than gradually. To me it feels like we are watching a theft in progress, a steady drip, drip, drip of statements, legislation, polls, stunts (the Arizona recount, for instance) appointments to key posts in the state bureaucracies that operate our elections, and Trump’s stranglehold on the GOP. Blocking a bipartisan investigation of the January 6 insurrection attempt and the events that led up to it is one way to fashion truth from lies. Don’t dig. Don’t corroborate. Blame Antifa thugs masquerading as MAGA members for all the damage and death; those agitators from the godless coasts who rode into DC on the wings of giant black bats with twelve foot wingspans and fire shooting from their talons. In Q-World, nothing is too outlandish. 

Trump lost, but his Big Lie lives. The bloated con man from Florida may very well succeed in creating history completely from a stew of lies and crackpot theories concocted in mildewy basements then propagated across the Internet and echoed by the FOX News/Sinclair Broadcasting/OAN universe. People who are either gullible or otherwise starved of factual information make easier marks. Ignorance is a tough, persistent opponent that doesn’t go down easily. 

Joe Manchin of West Virginia has leverage over his fellow Democrats. He can sputter incoherently about his love of democracy and bipartisanship while blocking his party’s efforts to defang the filibuster and expand and protect voting rights. If Democrats push him too hard Joe might slide across the aisle and join the GOP, giving Mitch McConnell his majority again. Joe’s not up for reelection until 2024 and has little to fear from West Virginia voters even if he were to switch parties. It’s not like West Virginia is a safe haven for Democrats. Trump carried the state by a whopping margin. Manchin can enjoy this turn as a Big Time DC Power Broker with virtual impunity. 

For The People. Sounds nice. Sounds aspirational, even inspiring, just follow the wisdom of the common American, who can be counted on to be magnanimous, decent, fair, and just. Sure. If only it worked that way. The last thing the Gilded Class and its political babysitters want is more democracy; the fewer people that vote the better for them. Maintaining minority rule requires a lot of hubris and a fair amount of engineering. Control over who can cast a ballot is good; control over how votes are tabulated and certified is better. 

 

Alpha & Omega

 “Stories trap us, stories free us, we live and die by stories.” Rebecca Solnit

Why read the ramblings of an aging White American male, resident of Santa Barbara in the Once Great state of California? Fair question. Why write them? Better question. Everything is fair game at the minute. Excuse me while I empty the contents of my brain. Come along if you are inclined. We’ve been in our new digs for a month. It seems longer for some reason, like the physical movement of our household, be it only a block, had the effect of slowing time down. It was two and a half weeks before we had sorted the upheaval enough to be somewhat comfortable. Thinking back on those first couple of weeks, and my reaction to it, only reminded me of how fortunate I am at this moment. Millions of people on this damned planet do not have the luxury of being inconvenienced. We all saw that during the height of the pandemic. Many of us haven’t perceived the true damage wrought by Covid. Takes time, and a bit of distance to see clearly. (That’s my view, anyway, but maybe I put too much stock in the virtue of wisdom. Doesn’t naked ambition and blind greed run the table every time? Isn’t that what history tells us? Wisdom, that’s from the age of chivalrous knights, the warrior kings of old.) And fewer people would be inclined to walk away from a job that pays what mine does, but that is what I have decided to do at the end of June. It’s something I have thought about, off and on, for more than a year. The smart thing would be to suck it up and stay in harness; the right thing is to call it a career. Doing the right thing has most of the time served me well, led me to something else. It’s in no way a true retirement because I intend to continue working, just elsewhere, and in a different environment. I have worked almost my entire life, all kinds of jobs, and I still want and need to work, but what I don’t want is the daily pressure of dealing with other people’s issues, sitting through endless meetings, sorting annoying problems, always grinding, which is what I do at the moment. That, and much more, though I have been very well compensated for my efforts. I’ve never complained about the compensation; the battle for me was keeping boredom, frustration, and cynicism at bay. My career at the local school district has treated me well, and I’m leaving at the moment that feels right to me. But under no illusions, either. It’s going to be tight financially until I find something to do for money, and my wife finally moves on to better paying employment. She works hard and makes next to nothing at her job, exchanging low pay for flexible hours and the ability to work remotely. She’s ready for a change, too. I’ve got medical coverage until September, but then it’s off to anxiety land, buying health insurance through Covered California. My biggest peeve about this backassward nation is that we’re so weird about the commons. Every human being will need medical care sooner or later. It’s as fundamental as clean water and food. A civilized society should be able to agree on that, at the very minimum. Personally, I’d pay higher taxes for universal health care. Call me crazy. Most European nations make this arrangement work, it’s only in this country that rigid adherence to ideology makes it politically impossible. 

An end, and then I hope a new beginning, what I’m thinking of as the third phase of my life -- bring what it may. I’ve had incredible luck, good health, and a strong wife at my side. I’m forcing myself to stay in the present moment, not wander two months ahead and What If. I see it as taking a temporary step off the treadmill. What a luxury. It’s in considering how fortunate I am to have these options that my thoughts drift to places where survival is a perpetual struggle and decent choices are few. It’s a greedy world. America is a greedy nation. Always has been. Designed to be so. But I don’t think it speaks well of our country when there are people living in tents on the sides of our major freeways. It’s a sight that always jars me. Human lives shouldn’t be disposable. Seems like we often treat animals better than we treat people.

I’d rather not think about the political situation in America. It’s worse than it looks, of that I’m sure. One party is attempting -- and largely succeeding -- in choosing its own voters while excluding as many others from voting as possible. That’s part of it, but the GOP is also enshrining its powers relating to election law all over the country. That’s the more critical piece. First, prevent certain people from voting. Second, make sure their votes don’t count even if they manage to cast a ballot. A collision is coming. When a political party refuses to bow to the will of the voters and peacefully relinquish power according to the law, it has crossed over. The GOP is straddling the line, but by very little. After Trump, they understand that victory can be had by not conceding defeat. Don’t concede defeat, and you win. 

What a month this has been. I seem to be doing everything backwards. Moving into more expensive digs while at the same time walking away from my job. To top it off my beloved Chelsea Football Club won the Champions League title on Saturday, defeating Manchester City by one goal to nil. It still feels like a dream. The Blues put in a top performance against a City side that looked the favorite to lift the trophy. Big accomplishment for the club and manager Thomas Tuchel, who in less than a month beat Pep Guardiola three times. After a couple of poor late season performances -- against Arsenal in the Premier League, Leicester City in the FA Cup Final, and away at Aston Villa to close out the campaign -- Chelsea conspired to put together a complete performance, first minute to last. A very sweet victory, and some redemption for Kai Havertz, the young German who joined Chelsea for a record fee but started the season slowly. Havertz scored the match winning goal near the end of the first half. 

Not Quite Home Sweet Home

 ”At the end of the day, the best measure of the humanity of any society is the life and happiness of its children. We live in a rich society with poor children, and that should be intolerable.” Mike Davis, City of Quartz

We keep asking one another, “does it feel like home?” The answer for me is yes, our new digs strike a homey vibe with me, even though we are not fully situated and have at least a dozen boxes left to empty, artwork to hang, stuff to put away. Our familiarity and comfort level grows, routines develop, but we still carry the muscle memory of the little apartment we lived in for so long.  I set up my gym in the carport, heavy bag, double-end bag, suspension trainer, and can do all the modes of training I did up the block, with the benefit here of being able to leave the heavy bag up all the time. My wife still feels unsettled, in part because she’s been distracted by her mother’s physical condition after hip replacement surgery, and the prospect of rotator cuff surgery in July. Two surgeries in less than a year for an 80-year-old woman who wasn’t in the best of health to begin with. Like millions of Americans, we have elder care responsibilities. My sister-in-law says worry is the weight; she’s right, it’s the worry of what might happen next. 

My son takes after me in several respects (poor boy), and one of those ways is that he hates meetings, corporate-speak, and bullshit. When he worked at the LA Philharmonic there were too many meetings that meandered around and accomplished nothing, and now he’s experiencing similar nonsense at the San Francisco Opera. “This is definitely my last non-profit arts gig,” he tells me, exasperated by all the hours he considers wasted. He complains but on the other hand he’s lucky as hell and knows it, with a tolerable job in the city he wants to be in, health insurance, a measure of predictability, and less than $20K in student loan debt for the year and a half he was in college, first at Southern Oregon University and then Pacific Northwest College of Art. I don’t know if he’ll ever go back to school. But whether he does or not, my son is an artist in his soul, and nothing can change that. The kid is 24 and already has figured out that the world into which he was born is fucked. 

While I was cleaning out a bin I found a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center titled, The Year in Hate and Extremism. It was from 2019, a year before the January 6 Trump-goaded insurrection. Skimming through the Executive Summary I came across this passage: “It is time to move beyond the illusion that hate violence and extremism is merely a criminal crisis in America. It is also a political crisis.” What most of us saw with our own eyes on January 6 was a manifestation of that political crisis -- the refusal by the loser to accept the results of an election. We watched the storming of the Capitol happen in real time. Then we watched the same scenes replayed over and over. For the first time in American history, the transfer of political power was marred by violence. The folks who breached the Capitol under the Trump flags were not peaceful, law-abiding tourists as some in the GOP would have us believe. They were not victims, they were perpetrators. Five people were killed. The Vice President was a target of the mob. Those are facts. The rewrite of history by the Trump wing of the GOP -- and that’s most of the party -- is well underway. Lie big, lie often, and never let the lie die. Tell me, someone, can a two-party system function when one of the parties is insane? Surely the answer is, not for long. It’s the old notion of a house divided against itself, as true now as it was in 1861. The American experiment in self-government is fraying, and the hard reality is that we might see, four years from now, a GOP-controlled Congress refuse to certify the results of an election if the outcome doesn’t favor its candidate. And then what happens? If you think this is farfetched, you had better think again. The GOP as currently incarnated cares about one thing, and one only: power. Kevin “Tiny Balls” McCarthy and Mitch “Cowardly Lion” McConnell flip-flop like bass in the bottom of a boat. Although it’s critically important for American democracy that the events of January 6 be fully investigated, such an inquiry is the last thing the GOP wants as it’s likely to expose complicit party members. Some sort of watered-down, toothless investigation may still happen, but if it’s not a bipartisan effort, it will have very little legitimacy. Corruption in Washington D.C. is a stubborn thing, like a bloodstain on a white shirt. 

Speaking of...I have to have some blood work done and a colonoscopy. The prep for the colonoscopy is worse than the procedure itself. My personal history of colonic polyps. 

It appears that the legal noose is dangling closer to Trump’s fat neck. The Attorney General of New York is looking at potential criminal liability, not only civil liability. Trump’s long-time money man, Allen Weisselberg, is being squeezed. When it comes down to saving Trump’s bacon or his own, what will Weisselberg do? Stay tuned. Trump trampled just about every norm we’ve come to expect an American president to adhere to, and I won’t be surprised if he’s our first criminally indicted former president. 

Jeffrey St. Clair writes on the Counterpunch website, “The Palestinians are a stubborn impediment to the inexorable growth of the Israeli state. They are an obstacle that must be removed. But removal is not enough. Their cultural identity and history must be erased, all traces of their existence as a people wiped away.” 

For a brief time Israeli bombs and artillery shells will cease raining down on Gaza, but the apartheid regime and the gross imbalance of power between Jews and Palestinians will remain. There’s no victory lap to be taken by anyone. It’s a human tragedy, a miscarriage of justice, and a grotesque, ongoing violation of human rights. 

 

Target Practice

“More death and destruction will undoubtedly follow as Israeli forces prepare for a land invasion, children will die, the tragic numbers in Israel will be dwarfed by the magnitude of horrifying death in Gaza. Mothers and fathers will weep and young men will vow vengeance. We know this story.” Alice Rothchild, Counterpunch 

Gaza is being bombed, again. 2008. 2012. 2014. How many times can one 350 square mile sliver of land be pounded by advanced weaponry, and how much longer will the State of Israel be allowed to kill Palestinians with impunity? If my memory serves, the UN issued a report in 2014 that concluded that Gaza might be uninhabitable by 2020. As always, the United States pledges its support for Israel’s right to “defend itself.” No mention made of the right of the Palestinian people to simply live. Do the majority of the Israeli people support what their government is doing in their name? Aren’t the Jews doing to the Palestinians what was done to Jews in Russia, Poland, and Germany for generations? Ethnic cleansing. Wholesale theft of land, water, homes. 

The conflict is always depicted in the American media as one waged between equals, which is laughable. The US doesn’t gift the Palestinians millions of dollars worth of military hardware every year, nor does it promote the Palestinian cause in the United Nations at every opportunity as it does Israel. The leader of the Palestianian Authority isn’t invited to address a joint session of Congress as Bibi Netanyahu was a few years ago. 

Why do I care? What does it have to do with me and the price of bread or cheese? What has it to do with the work my wife and I need to do on our new digs? Maybe nothing, but as a citizen of the US, it pisses me off to no end that my government consistently and unquestioningly backs Israel. The journalist Chris Hedges wrote this week, “I know the crimes of the occupation—the food shortages caused by the Israeli blockade, the stifling overcrowding, the contaminated water, the lack of health services, the near constant electrical outages due to the Israeli targeting of power plants, the crippling poverty, the endemic unemployment, the fear and the despair. I have witnessed the carnage. “ Children are being killed. In the West Bank news reports say mobs of angry Jews roam the avenues looking for Arab targets. Do they want to murder them all? This conflict began years before I was born. I was 8-years-old during the 1967 war that saw Israel take control and occupy Palestinian land in violation of international law. When public health lockdowns went into effect across the US in 2020, many Americans reacted as if all their civil liberties had been permanently stripped away. Well, imagine living under siege and the threat of bombardment the way the people of Gaza do every day. Imagine being forcibly evicted from the house your family has lived in for half a century. Imagine watching Jewish settlers set fire to your olive trees. In this long conflict there have been casualties on both sides, though disproportionately on the Palestinian side. They seem to stand all alone, invisible to the world. A good number of countries are critical of Israel, but as long as Israel is backed by US economic and military power, nothing changes. The State of Israel has been emboldened to take more, and more, expanding ever further. 

What did Martin Luther King Jr. say about injustice? The exact quote slips my memory but the gist of it was that people should push back against injustice wherever they encounter it, because sooner or later injustice comes calling. Wherever one human life is devalued compared to another, deemed less important, less worthy of dignified treatment. Collective punishment of a civilian population is illegal under international law, but of course Israel isn’t deterred by that. By providing cover for Israel to do whatever it pleases my government is complicit in these crimes. 

Too Much Stuff

 

“Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain.” Bob Dylan

= I came across a quote by Thomas Mann that seems to sum up the age we are living in here in the barely united United States.  Mann wrote, “Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstasy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, a proletarian eschatology; and reason veils her face.” The batshit antics of the Trump-owned GOP, from the surreal ballot recount in Arizona, which may be ruled illegal if it gets any nuttier, to Trump urging all his sycophants to run Liz Cheney out of her leadership position, to the hundreds of anti-democracy voting bills introduced in Republican-controlled state legislatures. The assault on Liz Cheney, who sits third in the House hierarchy, behind the power-mad Kevin McCarthy and Trump bootlicker Steve Scalise, is an example of the GOP eating its own. Cheney’s transgression? Refusing to carry water for Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election, which, let’s not forget, he lost. I haven’t forgotten that Cheney is the spawn of Uncle Dick Cheney, one of the most devious VP’s in recent history; she’s a hard-right Conservative about whom the only positive thing I can say is that at least what she believes is tethered to reality. If it appears that Cheney is standing alone against the Forces of Trump it’s only because the bar for integrity in the GOP is an inch from the surface of the cesspool. McCarthy, McConnell, Hawley, Cruz, Rubio -- this bumper crop of political miscreants -- who daily trade their honor for power, are going to destroy the GOP as a viable political party. Since the Reagan Revolution conservatives have run the table, as dominant as the best Manchester United teams under Sir Alex Ferguson, but they have lost the magic and must be relegated. They’re out of ideas, other than obstruction and destruction. They’re deathly afraid of Donald J. Trump, who sits on his fat behind down in Mar-A-Lago and whines about election fraud, and SAVING OUR GREAT COUNTRY to small crowds of devoted fans and asskissers like Kevin McCarthy. America might benefit from more than two political parties, but at the very least two are necessary, and they must do more than obstruct, undercut, and sabotage each other. We’re headed for a bad patch, of this I am sure. The GOP is too far out to sea to rescue itself. Thanks to Trump, the man incapable of accepting defeat, every election from here out will be doubted, contested, and denounced for impropriety. Democracy runs on faith in shared norms, and rules written and unwritten. Trump always thought, and still does, that no law applies to him. 

=One week in our new digs. First time we’ve ever lived in a house. Still surrounded by boxes in need of unpacking, but we’ve made good progress in a week. Got the cable and the WiFi connected -- after I dashed down to Office Max and bought a new cable modem. Washed our first loads of laundry, ironically the last in our 15-year-old GE washing machine. Blew the bearings the first time we used it in our new home. We bought a refurbished Kenmore for $450 from a man with a side yard full of appliances of every description. Commercial grade stoves, a huge gas range circa1949, refrigerators, cannibalized washers and dryers, hoses and motors. It was like an amusement park of appliances. 

We have real windows. By that I mean double-windows which slide up and down. Of the many things I loathed about our apartment, the casement windows were at the top of the list. I’ve always wanted a front porch wide enough for a bench or chairs, and now we have one, with a little bistro set my wife purchased from Wayfair or such. (Inexpensive stuff, made in China by human beings who earn very little money, a fact not lost on me.) We have a solid front door. We have nooks and crannies, a kitchen you can actually move around in without bumping into something or someone. We even have a fireplace. Yet this first week we have struggled to adapt to the space, our minds and muscles trained over two decades to a very different configuration of light switches and cupboards and drawers. Waking up one night to pee, I was momentarily lost, not sure where the bathroom was. Long way to go yet, but this is going to be a wonderful house to live in, though I suspect it will be cold in the winter months. Another month, possibly two, before we’re dialed in. 

The move has also been difficult because clutter and disorder unsettles me. I can handle a certain amount of both, but when I reach my limit I get cranky as hell, a problem for my wife and daughter, both of whom tend to hoard. Over twenty years we had simply accumulated too much stuff, a lot of it useless. I counted six upright fans, a big box of board games no one has played for at least five years, a bolt of muslin that I’ve wanted to toss for a quarter century, a broken telescope that belonged to my wife’s father. To me moving day felt like drowning. We loaded box after box into the U-Haul and still there were more. For the first couple of days we climbed over and around boxes and hunted for toothbrushes and Q-Tips and prescription medications. It kind of made me snap, I just lost my shit over the futility of moving all this stuff from one place to another, only this time without a large storage space to put it in. Six plastic storage boxes full of Christmas ornaments, enough to decorate three trees. Rolls of wrapping paper, some sealed, most open, loose, torn. Boxes of shoes. Stuff, everywhere. I’m still looking for a black belt. 

=My beloved Chelsea Football Club booked a place in the Champions League Final later this month, brushing aside a struggling Real Madrid team. This is a stunning achievement for a team that six months ago looked to be going absolutely nowhere. Frank Lampard’s team was bereft of identity and solidity, and some players, like centerback Antonio Rudiger, and wingback Marcos Alonso, had been shunted aside like surplus parts. When Lampard got sacked and the German Thomas Tuchel took over,  it was a reclamation project of the highest order. But Tuchel has been more than up to the task. The hallmark of successful football managers is their ability to make good players great players. Tuchel has a good football mind and very high standards for his team.